Sandra’s group of 3rd grade students gathered around the edge of the pond. They used long-handled dip nets to sample the pond water and shouted with excited calls when something live moved inside the net. Working in pairs, the students emptied their nets into shallow tubs of pond water so they could see what they had sampled. There were lots of “Ooohs” and “Aaahs” as dragonfly larvae and tadpoles fell from the nets into the tubs. Kiesha shouted, “it bit me!” as she picked dragonfly larvae out of the net. While Keisha just laughed and continued picking tadpoles and other materials from the net, other students within earshot stepped back from their nets nervously. As Sandra walked between groups huddled around nets and tubs, she noticed how some students exhibited high energy and enthusiasm while others attempted to physically distance themselves from the activity as their bodies and faces communicated their discomfort.

“Andrew, don’t you want to match your group’s organisms with our photos of macroinvertebrates?” Andrew shook his head and said, “it’s just mud and dirt, and they all will either bite or sting me.” “Yeah,” said Kelly, “I don’t want to get my dress dirty or get mud on my new shoes. It’s yucky anyway.” “And I don’t like that smell,” Jen interjected. Recognizing that the apprehensions expressed by Andrew, Kelly, and Jen could interfere with their opportunity to learn, Sandra considered ways to include Andrew and the other hesitant students in the learning process.

As a child, Ms. Martin had spent many hours of free time in nature, digging in dirt, and collecting rocks and insects. These “memorable life experiences” structured her appreciation of the natural world, providing a base of experiences that supported her desire to help students learn about the patterns and cycles in nature. Ms. Martin’s schoolyard expedition goals were to provide her students with opportunities for authentic engagement in nature. She knew that students’ learning is influenced by their emotions and social connections. Ms. Martin hoped to provide her students positive, authentic experiences working together as they explored concepts around ecosystems in the outdoors, rather than simply reading about them in a textbook. These activities would serve as a base for her students’ observations of the biotic and abiotic parts of ecosystems. Rather than having her students identify and name each organism, Ms. Martin instead wanted her students to carefully observe and, through drawings and writing, describe the organisms and begin to organize them into classification categories. She also knew that by having students make their own collections and take inventory of their discoveries, their enthusiasm and interest to explore more invertebrates in their environment would be harnessed in productive ways.

Sandra’s participation in professional development workshops on learning designs made her consider how to adapt instruction to meet the needs of her students. In her class, Sandra had several students with individual education plans (IEP), including students identified as advanced, students with behavioral challenges, and students with learning disabilities. She had learned that transitioning from a learning environment with the characteristics of a “traditional classroom” to the outdoor pond setting had potential to reach some of her non-traditional learners as well as students without documented learning challenges. Ms. Martin hoped that through these outdoor experiences, she could pique her students’ interests and desire to actively participate in the learning process.

Sandra started the lesson on ecosystems and life cycles with a review of classification systems and asked her students to describe examples of animals in the categories of vertebrates and invertebrates. Her class had studied the characteristics of five classifications of vertebrates, so Sandra reviewed the needs of living things and how plants’ and animals’ needs are met in their environment. The school’s retention pond was located by the path that students took each day to the school’s cafeteria, and when Sandra explained that they were going to examine their school’s retention pond, it was clear that few of her students had noticed this isolated ecosystem on their school grounds. Prior to going outside, Sandra reviewed her students’ health records for allergies and parent permission slips. She reminded her students about the class expectations for the outdoor classroom, and then as she asked her students questions about the retention pond to identify their prior knowledge, she realized that her students had failed to notice the varying water levels and that they had never considered it as an ecosystem. Sandra asked the students to predict what kinds of living and non-living things they would find in the pond. Students each made their own lists, and she noticed a number of the students wrote only “fish.” As they headed outside, the students took their holding tubs and dip nets and headed to the retention pond. As some students collected and described the samples, other students documented the living and non-living findings through written descriptions and drawings, but Ms. Martin still pondered how to include Andrew, Jen, and Kelly who stood in the back and clearly felt squeamish and put off by the mud and organisms.

Sandra remembered Andrew’s interest in gaming. She then asked Andrew to return to the classroom and bring back four Chromebooks. When Andrew returned, she put Andrew and the other reticent students in charge of searching for macroinvertebrate photos, habitat descriptions, and life cycles. As one group sampled, another recorded, and a third developed a classification system. Soon, Andrew’s group’s new role as information providers drew student teams to them to ask for more information.

In addition, as the pond activity continued, Ms. Martin noticed how Andrew, Jen, and Kelly demonstrated a sense of engagement and pride as information sources. She also noticed that Andrew moved closer and closer to the pans of water samples. When she saw him ask another student, Jennie, to hold his Chromebook so he could use a magnifying glass to observe a dragonfly nymph he was holding in his hand, she encouraged the entire class to listen to Andrew’s careful description of the segmented abdomen. “Andrew, do you think this animal has a backbone?” All the students chorused “no, it’s an invertebrate!” As the sampling activity progressed, students developed T-charts to document “biotic” for all the living things in their sample water and “abiotic” for all the non-living things.

When they returned to the classroom, the class used a cart to transport their samples with them. Ms. Martin poured each sample into a large classroom aquarium so students’ observations and investigations would extend beyond the outdoor activity. Subsequent classroom investigations were guided by focus questions asking about the interconnections of biotic and abiotic parts of ecosystems, life cycles, and patterns in nature that were situated in the context of the retention pond. One of Ms. Martin’s goals was to facilitate her students working together as they engaged in science practices such as making observations (including using magnifying glasses to extend their sense of sight), communicating (drawing, words, or audio recordings), classifying (using their self-selected groups), and measuring (i.e., length, volume, and time). In addition, students’ authentic investigations connected science content with literacy practices. Shelly asked, “Ms. Martin, where is the book about algae?” Shawn wanted to read more about dragon flies and damsel flies, and Ellen used the classroom books about geology to write about how sedimentary rocks are formed.

As the year went by, the students’ interest and enthusiasm about all the hidden life in the retention pond persisted, particularly in the early spring when the frogs could be heard calling. But when the seasonal rains waned and the pond’s water level dropped, Andrew expressed a sense of worry about the water creatures and their survival. Sandra was able to channel Andrew’s concerns and share them with other students as the class continued the documentation of patterns and life cycles. While her students’ comfort levels with sampling and touching the organisms varied, this set of activities provided students with shared experiences and a base for further learning.

FormalPara For Reflection and Discussion
  1. 1.

    What are some other strategies Ms. Martin could use to include all the students in this learning process?

  2. 2.

    How can Ms. Martin address the loss of habitat when the retention pond dries up?

  3. 3.

    How can Ms. Martin further support connections of science and other subjects: literacy, social studies, and mathematics?

  4. 4.

    What are some ways to build the reticent students’ identities as science learners while also respecting their fears about the aquatic environment?

  5. 5.

    How can Ms. Martin reduce the fear that some of the students felt while sampling the pond water while also building their confidence in investigating science outdoors?

  6. 6.

    How can you re-imagine Ms. Martin’s lesson to include a student who might be in a wheelchair in the investigations? A student with visual impairment?